Manufacturing Leadership Council members gather at Merck's manufacturing site in Durham, NC, to see how vaccines and other drugs are made, and to discuss key issues in digital manufacturing, including needed skill sets and how to use data effectively.
Finding people with digital skills sets and making better use of increasingly large volumes of data as advanced technology expands on the shop floor are challenges that must be ad… http://mail.gilcommunity.com/blog/merck-plant-tour-digital-skills-data-take-center-stage/

Speakers at the third annual Smart Factory World Symposium debate whether the U.S. manufacturing industry is still competitive as well as the challenges and opportunities of embracing Manufacturing 4.0, the next wave of industrial progress.
Except for having to make a connecting flight in September on my way to China, I hadn’t been in Chicago in about a year. Late last month I had an opportunity to visit the Windy Ci… http://mail.gilcommunity.com/blog/digital-transformation-key-competitiveness/

After a 16-day, four-city trip to China, ML Council co-founder David R. Brousell reflects on what he saw and learned about China and the country's manufacturing direction.
Saturday, October 14, 2017 – After a 17-hour flight from Hong Kong, the last leg of our 16-day visit to China, we arrived in Boston early Monday morning on October 9, the flesh we… http://mail.gilcommunity.com/blog/china-journal-after-trip-reflections-china/

David R. Brousell, the Co-founder of the Manufacturing Leadership Council, begins a 16-day trip to China, where he will speak at the MIF2017 manufacturing conference in Tianjin on the subject of Manufacturing 4.0.
Monday, September 25, 2017 – The American Airlines plane touched down at Pudong Airport in Shanghai at about 1:30 pm on Friday, nearly 30 minutes ahead of schedule. It was the… http://mail.gilcommunity.com/blog/china-journal-shanghai-first-step-journey/

Members of the Manufacturing Leadership Council last week toured LAI International's 75,000-square foot plant in Maine, and heard about how the manufacturer of precision-engineered parts devised its roadmap to Manufacturing 4.0.
For LAI International, the creation of a roadmap to Manufacturing 4.0 started with putting customers at the center of the company’s thinking. A motto grew out of this orientation:… http://mail.gilcommunity.com/blog/plant-tour-lai-m40-multi-step-journey/

Nearly 100 members of the Manufacturing Leadership Council gathered in Greenville, South Carolina last week to see first-hand how General Electric’s 1.5-million square foot heavy duty gas turbine factory is embracing digitization.
Nearly 100 members of the Manufacturing Leadership Council gathered in Greenville, South Carolina last week to see first-hand how General Electric’s 1.5-million square foot heavy … http://mail.gilcommunity.com/blog/ge-plant-tour-shaping-factory-future/

Manufacturers across all vertical industries are poised to dramatically ramp up investments in smart products, digitized processes and related technologies, skills, and training over the next four years, significantly altering the competitive landscape an…
Manufacturers across all vertical industries are poised to dramatically ramp up investments in smart products, digitized processes and related technologies, skills, and training o… http://mail.gilcommunity.com/blog/manufacturing-40-invest-now-or-risk-falling-behind-report-warns/

In the latest issue of the Manufacturing Leadership Journal, a senior manufacturing executive from a large life sciences company said that the most important leadership qualities for the future will be “the ability to empower all the different levels in t…
In the latest issue of the Manufacturing Leadership Journal, a senior manufacturing executive from a large life sciences company said that the most important leadership qualities … http://mail.gilcommunity.com/blog/one-third-production-workers-found-need-public-assistance/

On a recent Manufacturing Leadership Council Roundtable call, Dr. Dean Bartles, Executive Director of the Digital Manufacturing Design and Innovation Institute and a member of the Council’s Board of Governors, laid out his vision of manufacturing’s digiti…
On a recent Manufacturing Leadership Council Roundtable call, Dr. Dean Bartles, Executive Director of the Digital Manufacturing Design and Innovation Institute and a member of the… http://mail.gilcommunity.com/blog/do-manufacturers-need-chief-digital-officers/

In its first plant tour and roundtable discussion of 2015, members of the Manufacturing Leadership Council gathered recently at Lockheed Martin’s F-35 jet fighter factory in Fort Worth, TX, to see how the $100 million plane is made and to discuss what for…
In its first plant tour and roundtable discussion of 2015, members of the Manufacturing Leadership Council gathered recently at Lockheed Martin’s F-35 jet fighter factory in Fort … http://mail.gilcommunity.com/blog/lockheed-plant-tour-event-digital-factory-roundtable-focuses-people-factor/

Is all the talk in the popular media about a “manufacturing renaissance” actually working against the manufacturing industry? A report issued this week by the Washington, DC-based Information Technology and Innovation Foundation think tank concludes that,…
Is all the talk in the popular media about a “manufacturing renaissance” actually working against the manufacturing industry?
A report issued this week by the Washi… http://mail.gilcommunity.com/blog/manufacturing-renaissance-reality-or-hype/

Today, businesses are realizing more and more value through investments in digitization, but the trajectory is anything but smooth or predicable. A recent McKinsey survey on digitization, for example, says that many organizations are not realizing the ful…
Any time a new, pervasive technology is injected into an organization, something transformational happens. We’ve seen it with enterprise resource planning systems, customer relati… http://mail.gilcommunity.com/blog/your-organization-ready-digitization1/

One of the more interesting findings from the Manufacturing Leadership Council’s Factories of the Future (http://bit.ly/188uFh2 ) project this year is what manufacturers are saying about digitizing their business processes.A strong majority, 59.4%, say th…
One of the more interesting findings from the Manufacturing Leadership Council’s Factories of the Future (http://bit.ly/188uFh2 ) project this year is what manufacturers are… http://mail.gilcommunity.com/blog/digitization-pick-your-shots-dont-miss-big-picture/

The trend of converting analog information to digital form has been around for a long time. Who doesn't interact with some form of digital information today in their business and personal lives? Mail, business records, financial transactions, ticket purch…
The trend of converting analog information to digital form has been around for a long time. Who doesn't interact with some form of digital information today in their business and … http://mail.gilcommunity.com/blog/digitization-powerful-trend-s-picking-speed/